Criminologist and Associate Professor at University of Southern Queensland (UNiSQ) Suzanne Reich claims opening the children’s court to media is not the solution to reduce youth crime.
Ms Reich has worked with young people at risk in high schools, in youth crisis accommodation and in youth detention.
According to Ms Reich naming and shaming young offenders is more likely to have adverse effects.
“If you think naming and shaming is going to deter young people from committing further crimes, we’re probably going to have the ‘labelling effect’ and it will do the opposite. When we label someone with negative terms there is the possibility that they will internalise that label, see themselves as that label and then act accordingly.
“It’s just not as straightforward as we would like it to be or as people think it is. There are a lot of questions that are raised as a result of this suggestion [by the Premier] in terms of what do you think is going to be achieved by doing this because I can only see a lot of negatives for both the short and the long term,” Ms Reich said.
“I’m not going to minimise the impact and the experience that people have had off the back of what happened in Redbank Plains and I understand emotions are running high, but often when the emotions are running high that really gets in the way of thinking about things in terms of what is actually effective,” she said.
“Harsh punishments aren’t effective so why do we keep calling for harsh punishments when they don’t actually contribute to a safer society.
“Sure people might feel safer while somebody is locked away but we’re not looking at what’s happening to address the underlying motivating factors that have contributed to that offending behaviour and how we can bring about the rehabilitation in that person’s life so that they don’t re-offend.”
According to Ms Reich the negative effects can be long-lasting not only for offenders.
“If a young person is named and shamed and their rights of anonymity are and protections are taken away from them, and their names and faces are out on the internet, then later on when an employer does a google search it can create a long term barrier to future opportunities where they can give back and be tax paying contributing members of society, then we’ve got a different problem on our hands.
“All the evidence is there that if the punishment is too harsh it has an opposite effect to what we expect it to have and it actually increases the rate of crime rather than decreases it.”
Ms Reich said there better solutions available. For example, research has shown restorative approaches such as youth justice conferencing which bring young offenders and victims together with their respective support people to foster empathy and healing for the harm that has been caused have been very effective.
